Campaigning with Gov. Pataki, Lazio charged that the first lady’s “so-called plan” for creating jobs is a rehash of Cuomo’s discredited, high-tax approach.

“Those ‘targeted’ tax cuts didn’t work under the Cuomo administration. They were hollow,” Lazio said.

“They are just as hollow under my opponent’s so-called plan.”

Hours later, Clinton made a scheduled appearance in Buffalo, where she toured Bethlehem Steel and called Lazio’s claims “laughable and desperate.”

“I was quite taken today when I heard that my opponent basically said that he didn’t have any targeted economic help for upstate New York after promising for weeks that he was going to put forward a plan,” the Democratic candidate said.

“He has turned his back completely on western New York and the rest of upstate New York,” she said at a later appearance with local elected Hispanic officials.

She wouldn’t answer directly when asked about Pataki’s record upstate or about Cuomo’s legacy.

With Lazio by his side, Pataki said, “It’s 1994 all over again. When you take a look at Mrs. Clinton and think of her policies, it’s Mario Cuomo redux.”

The Lazio campaign’s bid to bind Clinton to Cuomo mirrors the first lady’s ongoing effort to morph her rival into former House speaker Newt Gingrich.

Utica-based pollster John Zogby questioned Lazio’s tactic.

“Cuomo’s name has been rehabilitated,” Zogby said.

“Certainly, it’s not the way it was in ’94. Cuomo has become more of an elder statesman.”

But one of Lazio’s aides insisted, “Mario Cuomo is still very real to people. The specter of his policies is hanging over upstate.”

Cuomo could not be reached for comment.

Lazio has been under siege upstate from Clinton, who is airing an ad portraying Lazio as an ostrich with its head in the sand – a clever way of saying he doesn’t understand or even acknowledge upstate’s ongoing economic woes.

Cuomo, a three-term Democrat whom Pataki ousted in 1994, is still blamed by some upstaters for worsening the region’s economic troubles in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

“Those were terrible years,” Lazio said. “We can’t go back on that path.”